56	57	58	59
60	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69
70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79
80	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89
90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99
00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09
10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21

France... the only member of the Big Five for whom it was a bit of a struggle to put together a full top ten. Let's be quite clear about this: France have consistently under-performed. It isn't that we don't like French music: we do... lots. It's just that all the best French performances have been for Luxembourg. This seems to suggest something about the French selection process.

In early decades France played it safe: very straightforward (and not very interesting) chanson gave way to similarly dreary power ballads. In the '90s there seems to have been an effort to explore the North African connection, but seldom with much conviction. The image that comes to mind is of some Gautier-clad Sade wannabe (alas not the Marquis). Conclusion: must try harder.

	1pt	1969	AV: 8th Eur: =1st
	Frida Boccara - "Un jour, un enfant"
	One of the four winners in 1969, this entry has some rather pleasingly creepy organwork (distantly set somewhere between Blackpool and Heaven) like something from Blake's 7, and it builds really very nicely up until the point that it all goes a bit "Ave Maria on the Busses".
	2pts	1980	AV: unplaced Eur: 11th
	Profil - "Hé, hé M'sieurs dames"
	Israel have won the Eurovision Song Contest for two years running. France: "We want some of that!" The result is this pale imitation that owes much to that last two winning entries, but lacks the precision (or the quality). It's still quite fun though.
	3pts	1962	AV: 3rd Eur: 1st
	Isabelle Aubret - "Un premier amour"
	In 1962, France became the first country to win the song contest thrice. "Un premier amour" has a fantastic, mesmerizing verse, dripping with sumptuous repetition, but the development doesn't really fulfill the promise. Still, it was by no means an undeserving winner.
	4pts	2021	AV: unplaced Eur: 2nd
	Barbara Pravi - "Voilà"
	It's a 'scream if you want to go faster' wannabe-Brel birl! It needs a bit of push to get going but once it gets there it's rather nice.
	5pts	1976	AV: unplaced Eur: 2nd
	Catherine Ferry - "Un, deux, trois"
	A frenetic bit of fun cut from the "Puppet on a String" / "Oj Oj Oj" cloth, but not really having anything on either.
	6pts	1972	AV: 6th Eur: 11th
	Betty Mars - "Comé-comédie"
	Some straight-up fairground chanson from the fairy on top of the Christmas Tree. The very end is very good, but the rest of it never seems to get up to steam. It's also a rare case of us giving France more points than Europe did.
	7pts	1956	AV: 1st Eur: undeclared
	Dany Dauberson - "Il est là"
	Ridden with brass stabs and chase-sequence string ripples, it's the one song of 1956 with a genuinely measurable pulse. Alas it did not form the template of subsequent French entries.
	8pts	2008	AV: 3rd Eur: 19th
	Sébastien Tellier - "Divine"
	In 2008, France made the unusual move of singing their song mostly in English. It's also delivered in the style of Jarvis Cocker. Sébastien Tellier arrives on stage in a golf buggy (perhaps by way of tribute to Fred Harris) accompanied by the doowopping of bearded backing vocalists (most of whom are female). It's a cool, laid-back song, and rather good with it, though it needs a bit more work to be a winner. An attempt to sing on helium doesn't really come off, but it's a memorable performance for mostly the right reasons.
	10pts	1981	AV: 3rd Eur: 3rd
	Jean Gabilou- "Humanahum"
	A glitzy bit of science fiction chanson (complete with nonsense title) that didn't quite squeeze enough key changes in to be properly good but did at least have an organ.
	12pts	1977	AV: 11th Eur: 1st
	Marie Myriam - "L'oiseau et l'enfant"
	A rather lovely spirally buildy thing. It's easy to see how it won, despite there having been ten better songs on the night (it just goes to show how amazingly good that year's contest was).